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Overly, the crypto market did tap good tidings in the first half of the year. After impressive gains from April through to June, the crypto market is officially over. Why not? Last year was a pain for crypto asset holders. Leading the free fall was the anchor coin, Bitcoin (BTC).

By diving from highs of $20,000 to a
low of $3,200, many investors were shaken. However, with regulators changing
their tune and mainstream financial institutions warming to blockchain, sinking
billions in crypto infrastructure development the future is brightening.

Case in point, Russia. Citing the
benefits of crypto and especially Bitcoin-rumor has it that they are amassing
the store of value coin in droves as a safety measure against US and NATO
sanctions, as efficiency, Elvira Nabiullina, the head of Russia’s central bank
praised blockchain.

Saying cryptocurrencies are a measure of the readiness of a society, she quips: It will be more convenient, it is electronic money for people, for citizens. Are we ready, as a society, to refuse cash?

Will Ripple (XRP) Succeed

Meanwhile, the Game of Thrones as far
as global payment providers are concerned is whether one of the many will finally
emerge and replace SWIFT. Dominant and
backed by more than 11,000 global banks and taking advantage of their “organizational
assets” of more than four decades, SWIFT is undoubtedly the leader.

However, the ground is shifty and
Ripple is taking advantage. Already, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is pulling
strings in the Middle East advocating for xCurrent. There are conversions with
some of these banks actually opting for xRapid. In South East Asia, Yoshitaka
Kitao is pulling strings through SBI Holding’s SBI Ripple Asia.

He has a seat in Ripple’s board and his expertise will definitely come in handy as Ripple plans to expand. Amid all these developments, the highlight has to be xRapid and the use of XRP as a bridge currency. The investment in Money Gram is bullish for consolidating XRP prices as the global remittance company will end up using xRapid.

Eventually, they will cut costs and
that is bullish for their shareholders explaining the soaring prices hours
after the Ripple and Money Gram announcement was made. Overly, there are over
15 banks and financial institutions using xRapid. Encouragingly and from Ripple’s
efforts, the number will likely rise in days ahead.

Ethereum (ETH) and Istanbul, Beacon Chain and Phase Zero

As far as Ethereum is concerned,
developers are hard at work. In fact, relative to other smart contracting
platforms as Tron or EOS for example, Ethereum is the most active in code
enhancement. It all has to do with the readiness for Ethereum 2.0.

Because of this, there is expectation
amongst investors that ETH will rally ahead of this multi-stage improvement.
Already, phase zero has been set for testing in early Jan 2010 while Istanbul
is scheduled for Oct 2019.

Then, two approved EIPs will be activated completing what was scheduled in the last Constantinople upgrade. Besides, SubZero spec is now done. Therefore, scanning ETH related events; it is easy to conclude that the path of least resistance is up.

Eth2 spec release v0.8 — SubZero

The phase 0 spec freeze is here! Thank you to everyone for all of the incredible work that has gone into thishttps://t.co/XuSHr4NCnP